It appears that Pablo Sandoval has dedicated himself to you:
…. For the first time in his life, Sandoval is lifting weights. He’s eating vegetables. He is meeting every Wednesday while he’s in Scottsdale with a nutrition professor from Arizona State University, who is teaching him about healthy food choices and portion control. He and his brother, who Sandoval brought with him for motivation and support, are eating catered meals – delivered to the Giants complex every morning in a cooler — of low-cal entrees like broiled chicken or salmon, and lots of salads, veggies and fruits.
There is no going out to restaurants or bars. The strongest beverage in Sandoval’s diet right now is green tea. Mostly he drinks water – 12 to 15 bottles a day. In the evening, after eating their prepared meals, the Sandoval brothers take a walk on a bike path near their rented apartment or play basketball to keep their metabolism up.
With the five pounds he lost during the past week, Sandoval has lost 10 pounds so far….
Just about the best news coming out of Giants camp since…. well, since I don’t know when. Gets me dreaming….
Here’s my Christmas wish list:
Sign Holliday (how about 6 years, $100 million?), give the keys to Buster Posey (bye bye, Rally Killer), Sandoval in monster shape at the start of the season, re-sign Brad Penny to a two-year, $12 million dollar deal, and everybody else just does what they did last season. That’s a 90-plus win team, right there, even with a hundred-year old double play combo, and nothing out of first base. By the way, if Uribe sticks around, he could screw this up until Renteria gets injured; because Sandoval needs to be left alone at third. Stop fucking with the superstar, the best player on the team. Leave him at third, period, and move the shit-heads around to accommodate the lack of performance, health, or whatever.
My lineup would be Rowand leading off, Sanchez second, Sandoval third, Holliday fourth, and whoever in whatever order Bochy can imagine the rest of the way. Even if Sanchez’ OBP is that low, even if he hits an empty .305, between him and Rowand, there oughta be at least one guy on base for Sandoval every other first inning, and that’s all you can really ask for from the top two guys anyway.
I mean, we’re not gonna get a whole new team.
So the best, the absolute best we could hope for is that the Yankees decide to keep Matsui and Damon, leaving them out of the Holliday sweepstakes. Sabean reimagines himself as competent (yeah, right), and swoops in and lands Holliday for, well, frankly, I could care less. Sign him, make a mistake here if you have to, because we are on the cusp of greatness with two, possibly three young pitchers, and we need to start seeing these guys in the posteason –for that matter, they need to start seeing themselves in the postseason– or they’re gonna think twice about sticking around to watch the playoffs on TV every year.
UPDATE: A quick look at Holliday shows the following three year road split: .303/.385/.475 .860 OPS 845 AB 54 2B 29HR 109 BB 167 SO. His Coors numbers are obscenely inflated, in only about 50 more at-bats, he has 25 more doubles, 25 more home runs, 75 more RBI, and the jump in his rate stats is outrageous: 346/.419/.630 1.049 OPS. That’s not even the same player, really.
So, OK, he’s nowhere near Texeira. He is, however, better than anyone the Giants have now, and, outside of Jason Bay, who is over 30, he’s better than any other free agent hitter available. He’s better than anyone they might see come out of their system over the next three seasons, and arguably better than anyone they could get without trading one of the big two. What other choice does Sabean have? Are you telling me you want to see the Giants give 3 years and $25 million to Rick Ankiel and hope he actually is ready to be an everyday player? He’s practically the only other free agent under 30 years old who’s done any hitting at all in his career.
Sabean failed again and again to address the power and on-base deficit, now there’s a free agent who plays top flight defense, is still only 29 years old at the start of the season, and would probably add 25 home runs, 100 walks, and countless quality at-bats to the offense.
What’s that guy worth? We just pissed away $55 million dollars on Randy Winn. We’re in the process of pissing away the same amount of money on Aaron Rowand. You’re telling me we can’t piss away twice that on a player who, at worst, is 50% better than either of those two, and at his best, is well over twice the player than either one of them is at their absolute best?
The Giants have championship-caliber pitching, right now. RIGHT NOW. Another year of hoping we can squeak out 88 wins with a bottom 10% offense, while our young stud pitchers waste another stellar performance cannot be considered acceptable. You cannot just keep letting years go by, telling yourself that it’ll be better next year. Sometimes you gotta jump. We shoulda gambled THIS year, and we didn’t. Who knows if Cain and Lincecum can keep going, year after year? Who knows if Affeldt and Sanchez keep improving? I’ll tell you one guy who doesn’t know. Brian Sabean.
Brian Sabean does not know if he’s gonna get another year of pitching like the one he just wasted like he’s got fifty of ‘em in his back pocket.
UPDATE: Uggla would fit Sabean’s player acquisition profile perfectly, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. We just signed a shitty second baseman, so why not trade some of our good, young prospects for another stone-handed second baseman, especially since Florida already announced to the world that they are trying to dump salary? Sure, let’s get taken advantage of! Scared? I’m always scared when it comes to Sabean.
76 Backtalkers
For once, nothing to disagree with here. Nice post!
I just don’t see Sabean pulling the trigger on a deal like that for Holliday. I also don’t think Holliday’s THAT good to warrant that kind of contract. He’s a very, very good player – but I don’t think he’s a break-the-bank-open kind of player, like Texeira was last season or Vlad was a 6 years ago when the Giants should have signed him.
This is why the Giants will continue to struggle – they won’t sign the big ticket FA’s, but they’re content fill the roster with the Michael Tuckers of MLB.
100 million dollars over six years is probably what it would take to sign Holliday, and maybe some big chunk of change for a signing bonus. He is a Boras client, so I don’t think he’ll go for much less.
Whether or not the Giants are willing is questionable; they certainly are able. On the other deal, with Penny, they probably won’t make that move, although I think $12 million for two years is generous and would probably get it done.
Probably going to bring up Bumgarner and Posey, take the two first drafts on Molina, and maybe keep Whiteside around – why the hell wouldn’t they? Since Bochey was a catcher he should be able to help Posey transition to the majors. If he can’t then what good is he? (Don’t everybody start yelling at once.)
Holliday would be a good fit for the Giants. He hits a lot of doubles, some of which would translate into triples at AT&T, and he has relatively good plate discipline. He’s young enough to sign to a six year deal and to be part of the younger team the Giants are finally fielding (wow, the average age of their starting 8 dropped below 30 for the first time in a decade last season). Holliday’s lifetime OPS is .933 and that is just what the doctor ordered.
I hope your Christmas Wish comes true.
Holliday’s looking for Teix type money. The Red Sox don’t have a LF’er at the moment. I think $100M is underestimating what he’s gonna get. I still basically agree with your whole post, though – though I’d try to find a spot for Fred Lewis (RF I guess? His D does worry me in RF, though I like him in LF) and bat him leadoff. Lewis’ career numbers are better than the average leadoff hitter’s numbers last year, and he’s OBP heavy, so that’s good. Also, don’t think you necessarily need the update on Holliday – hitters tend to hit worst on the road, probably because of the travel, jet lag, sleeping in a new place, new bed, not being familiar with the park, and whatever else. Road splits don’t tend to be a very good indicator of how well a hitter will hit for a new team, we should expect Holliday to hit better than those road splits indicate. Yes, his stats were obviously inflated by Coors, but they should be better than his road splits, and there’s some specific evidence regarding players leaving the Rockies that they pretty significantly outperform their road splits. One theory behind this is the pitch breaks less in Coors, so the players get used to that and it makes playing on the road hard when they’re on the Rockies, but once they leave the club, they get used to the additional break. The whole point of all this is Holliday is very, very good, and definitely comparable to Teix.
Going into last year, I maintained we still weren’t a playoff team and we should be waiting and making moves for the future. I was against your suggestion we go after Teix, on the basis that we should wait a couple years until we’re real contenders and then spend the money and make that kind of commitment. Well, the pitching was even better than I expected, and Sandoval was beyond all our wildest hopes. Like you said, we have championship caliber pitching right now…we should be looking to contend in 2010. Holliday is the only legitimate option to get us there. We should be going after him. What better time than now, while Lincecum is still relatively cheap, while Cain is still around, while Zito is useful….?
Here’s a good discussion regarding Matt Holliday’s Home/Road splits
It’s hard to believe, but Holliday might be underrated by many. And he’s the only player on the market this off-season who’s worth upwards of $20 mil. Unfortunately, I don’t think Sabean’s going to make a serious push for him…
Folks,
Word keeps coming up that the Giants are one of the teams “aggressively” pursuing Uggla.
There is no way we’d deal Cain or J. Sanchez for him, right?
I am so…freakin…scared right now. What is Sabean thinking? The Marlins are just trying to dump Uggla’s two years of arbitration dollars, right?
Please tell me Cain and J. Sanchez are going nowhere.
Please, anybody, just respond to this post.
JPT
Cain or Sanchez would not be in a discussion for Uggla. Simply put, Uggla is not worth nearly that much. I have no idea what prospects it would take, but it wouldn’t be Bumgarner or Posey, either.
B: Thanks for the response. I, OF COURSE, agree with you. But my actual question is whether it’s possible Sabean could be considering parting with Cain or Sanchez for Uggla. What do you think? Would Sabean agree with what you just typed?
I could see Sabean getting bamboozled into dealing Sanchez, but not Cain.
Nah, I’m pretty sure Sabean feels the same way. I’m always worried about him giving up too much, but I’m not worried about him giving up any major leaguers or Bumgarner.
If the Giants were going to trade for Uggla then they probably wouldn’t have handed out a two-year deal to Frreddy Sanchez, although maybe thats too logical for Sabean. Also after last season and the fact that Uggla will start to amke some serious cash starting next year mans that his trade value is pretty low so if Sabean were to trade for him he would hopefully not give up anything as avluable as Cain or the Spaniard
Thanks people
Everything you say makes sense to me. They have the money, Holliday has to be worth a bunch of runs towards getting an additional 100 that they need. No time like the present. One world Series appearance in 20 years doesn’t cut it for a big market team.
Having said that, here are my concerns.
By extending Sabean and Bochy for 3 years, Neukom is saying that the Partners are happy with the status quo. The status quo is this
Mediocre and uneven performance.
Unbalanced Rosters.
Lack of full commitment to top tier offensive free agents
Semi-commitment to cheap/affordable system pitchers.
Mid market payroll threshold
Declining but relatively stable attendance in uneven economy, has leveled out at about 2.75 million, with a declining payroll
Stable Cash flow created by reduced payroll expenditures since economic downturn
Steady Asset Growth, as equity builds in the realestate by loan paydown.
Growing cable network and expanded use of the stadium for non-Giants activities (fantasy camps, x-games, football, concerts, etc)
Based on those, I can see why Sabean’s retarded, ignorant, foolish contracts to Zito, than Rowand, Renteria and most recently Snatchez are tolerated or viewed upon with favor by baseball-ignorant partners. Not even going into the Molina, Roberts, Benitez fiascos.
Considering what we gave up to get Garko I don’t how Sabean doesn’t trade, Cain, Sanchez and Posey for Uggla. Its Sabean we’re talking about here.
I agree with everything you are saying here pretty much. Also if the Giants were to sign Holliday then its pretty obvious Sabean has to look at trading some of our excess in-house outfield options. This means seeing what he could get for Velez (although you might keep him as a 4th outfield/2b option), Fred Lewis (I’m still not sure I want to give up on him yet), Bowker (could share RF with Nate and possibly play some 1b).
I’ve mentioned this here before in the past but I’m also hoping that the Giants seriously consider using Ryan Garko as an extra catching option. I think they should at least look into or consider this before looking at free agent options like Zaun, Pudge etc.
Glad you reminded Geoffrey:
From July 28 this year:
The problem is this would make sense and would be a good ALLOCATION of resources. Garko can catch. He was a good defensive catcher in college. He’s a Stanford boy so he is no dummy.
And it would preclude the signing of some awful hacker over the hill piece of crap like Pudge or Kendall or some other old useless baseball card. Which is exactly why it won’t happen and Sabean will ALLOCATE resources to yet one more over the hill piece of shit washed up, immobile, injury prone chemistry gamer.
Blah!
Source & Link to your quote?
my gosh, an optimistic column! Coolness.
Completely agree with everything – Penny comes back, Posey starts the season or everyone should boycott the team, and no Uggla. The outfield… I have great fear of Damon or Matsui, and I think Bay is what Bay is, which isn’t worth what he’ll get as a FA. Holliday is a gamble, but with one hell of a lot of upside.
I am more disappointed in Bochy’s renewal that Sabean’s – the time is now, or if not now, 2011. For all of the reasons that +mia mentions, what are the odds that Sandoval, Lincecum and Cain stay when the time comes? Maybe one, maybe none.
Maybe Bochy can actually be a manager and, uh, manage? I hear he was one of those catcher guys once, maybe he could put that to use. All seeming alternatives look pretty sad.
I’m as afeared as anybody else – just, please, no idiotic trades.
The Giants just signed Freddy Sanchez to a two year contract to play second base and they haven’t given up on Burris down the line. Dan Uggla would be redundant. I don’t expect the Giants to give up prospects – let alone proven major league pitching – to acquire Uggla.
The Giants need a power hitting outfielder, or two, or three. Preferably one who with some range and who can catch the ball. Randy Winn may have underwhelmed fans with his hitting but his excellent defensive abilities will be missed.
Right field at AT&T is huge and the arches and chain link out there make it a very challenging job for fielders. Nate Schierholtz will probably start in right. He is a solid fielder and he has potential to improve his hitting. He will be playing winter ball in Puerto Rico this off season which is good news.
If Rowand can stay healthy, a big ‘if’ considering his propensity for running into inanimate objects, I assume he will be in center field as a regular starter.
Left field is where the Giants most need improvement and they don’t have anybody in the works. They have only average or below average options on their current roster. ‘Clank’ Lewis at the age of 30 is pretty much a known quantity. Talk all you like about running on the balls of your feet and teaching fundamentals – either you can catch the ball or you can’t – it’s not something that shows up late in your career.
I would expect the Giants to pursue a free agent left fielder and the most likely candidate is Matt Holliday. Their competition will be St. Louis and New York (both teams). I don’t expect the Red Sox to get too deeply into the mix; they know they would get into a bidding war with the Yankees, and left field at Fenway isn’t the Polo Grounds. The Cubs have Soriano through 2014 so speculation about their getting involved in a bidding war for Holliday is hard to support.
The Giants will have to overpay for Holliday, and I think $100 million over six years is the right neighborhood. Boras is talking Teixeira-like numbers and every other word out of his mouth is “franchise”, but what else would you expect from Boras? I don’t expect St. Louis to go over 5 years and $80 million. If the Yankees or Mets are really interested then the Giants will be shit out of luck.
Don’t discount the ridiculous possibility that Sabean goes after Uggla and tries to put him in the outfield. Sabean is that stupid.
Yes. Yes he is. He’s probably unaware that Garko’s natural defensive position is catcher too.
Every discussion about possible deals by the Giant’s front office could be prefaced with:
“Don’t discount the ridiculous possibility that Sabean might [fill in the blank]”.
I think +mia pretty much covered what we can expect: expect to be appalled. Again.
John,
This has nothing to do with the subject of this thread but I just could not resist sharing with you just how bad you “Great White Whale” has been on defense over the last three years. He is infact the single worst defender in all of baseball over this time. Adam Dunn’s defense has cost his teams a staggering 108 runs.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/highs-and-lows-of-uzr-2007-9-dunn
Let me say it again, I’m not interested in hearing about how a guy who can hit like Dunn isn’t worth the bother. Over the last three seasons, Dunn has played well enough to hit 118 home runs, the Giants hit 122 BY THEMSELVES THIS PAST SEASON!
The Giants have, in their fold, one of the best defensive first basemen of all time in JT Snow. He works there, at PacBell, right now, as we speak.
As I said last off-season, the Giants could have signed Dunn for the same money they wasted on Renteria, and all they would have had to do was tell him, “We’ll give you 2 years, $22 million, and all we ask is that you spend the off-season working with JT Snow on being a league average first baseman.”
It is up to the team to maximize the contributions of its players, while minimizing their faults. This is called coaching, it’s called player management, it’s called utilization, it’s called lots of things. For the Nationals, and whomever else Dunn has played for these last several years, to allow him to run out there and fail, game after game, year after year, IS A FAILURE OF THE ORGANIZATION. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Players don’t just happen to play better when the manager is better, when the coaching is better.
Players don’t just happen to have career years under coaches that pay attention to them, and help them fix the flaws in their games.
The one person in the world who could help Adam Dunn be the best he could be works for the SF Giants, and Dunn was waiting for someone to call him up last year so that he could hit another 40 home runs and walk another 100 times. The Giants went into the offseason needing exactly what he had to offer, and had exactly what he needed. It was a match made in heaven.
And our idiot of a GM couldn’t see it. And, frankly, neither could you.
Oh, and in case you’re thinking this was somehow my own special idea, let me add that teams have been hiding slow-footed, bad defense sluggers at first base since only about the time of Ruth and Gehrig.
When Buzz Bissinger and Bob Costas were talking about the guys in pajamas in their mother’s basement this is the guy they were talking about
Not suprised at all to see that you join John in wallowing in the ignorance that defense does not matter.
I’m not arguing that Dunn isn’t a bad defender. He is, he’s terrible, horrible atrocious. The point I would like to make however is why on earth did teams keep throwing him out there in right field? The Reds, D-Backs and Nats all gave Dunn playing time in right when he is clearly a terrible fielder. They should have stuck him in left or at first. By playing him in right field they only made his poor defensive contributions that much worse.
Also I agree with John’s point that we could have signed Dunn and played him at first and made him have lots of coaching off JT Snow. The only thing I would say about this however is that Dunn has picked up a label as some who allegedly “doesn’t like baseball”. Now I’m not sure how to take a comment like that but part of it could be that he wouldn’t be prepared to put much time into improving his fielding, although you could probably work around that by doing something a bit different like throwing in defensive incentives in his contract. If he can score above x in UZR he gets an extra amount, if he is positive in Dewan plus/minor numbers, stuff like that would probably motivate him to perform better and try a little harder in the field.
Also don’t forget that Ishikawa would have been available as a defensive sub in the later innings.
I agree with your point on RF. But really the only defensive poisition Adam Dunn should play is DH. Believe it or not he is actually worse at 1B (career -17.9 UZR/150) then LF (career – 12.4 UZR/150).
Bottom line is that over the last three years Adam Dunn’s defense has been so bad at whatever position he has played that it has resulted in wipping out all of his considerable positive offensive production of +97 runs and then some. Net he is a below average MLB position player. There is just no logical way to say that adding such a player to the Giants would improve the Giants.
While you’re at it faker, please explain again why Randy Winn’s millions to hit TWO HOMERUNS last year was money well spent. The guy has hit 106 homeruns in over 6000 plate appearances as a switch hitter. He has never contributed shit. Only a braindead sabeansmoking cracklicking suckface would consider 2 homeruns by a rightfielder as anything but embarrassingly pathetic, incompetent and yet another waste of somebody else’s millions. And only a boring sack of shit like you would even consider it debatable.
Simple, homeruns are not the only way to contribute to wins. Randy Winn was actually a move valuable player last year then Adam Dunn was. Yes, Adam Dunn’s offense last year was far superior to Randy Winn’s providing 35.5 more runs in value then an average hitter compared to Randy Winn providing 12.4 less runs in value than an average hitter. However this offensive advantage Dunn had is not just wiped out but reversed by the defensive advantage Winn has. Last year Randy Winn’s defense saved 10.7 runs compared to an average defender while Adam Dunn’s MLB worst defense gave up 46.1 runs compared to an average defender. Net, Randy Winn provided the Giants 5.5 more runs in value then Adam Dunn provided the Nationals.
You know what. Fuck you. Fuck your complete inability to find a clue with a rake. Fuck your unoriginal thought process. And did i mention Fuck You?. And while we’re at it:
Fuck your pimping other websites because you’re too stupid to construct your own conclusions. Fuck your absence of any baseball knowledge. Fuck your 3rd grade spelling level and fuck your 4th grade reading level. You’re one of the few fuckfaced fuckheads on earth that is capable of scoring lower than Vince Young’s 6 on the Wonderlich.
Nobody invited you here, but you’ve been invited to shut the fuck up until you stopped butting into everything and anything that doesn’t concern you or especially things you don’t know anything about, with some inane stupid petulant off-topic drivel that somehow supports some hare-brained, half-baked, half-assed, self-serving crackpot of a thought that leaks into your occasional consciousness.
You’ve been pounding some mindless sabean-sucking agenda for some unfathomable reason and can’t even manage to be interesting in the process. Which is your biggest fucking offense. YOU ARE FUCKING BORING.
Stick a fucking fork in your keyboard and increase the collective iq of the rubber room you reside in. You’re worse than a broken record. John has told you his reasons. He has explained to you in great detail. And yet you are simply too imbecilic to acknowledge simple facts. Plain facts. Obvious facts.
What really sets you apart from normal people is your complete inability to follow even the shallowest nuances involved in critical thinking. That is why I refer to your scribblings as no better than dogshit, half as interesting, and twice as odorous.
If you don’t like Adam Dunn so much, you should be stalking him instead of this place you fucking douchebag.
Yawn. Once again we see all you have to offer.
Of course what I have to offer is mostly original and is intended for entertainment purposes as well as the occasional baseball insight. Occasionally some of my sentences are coherent, use R-rated phrases, contain multi-syllabic words, profane and otherwise include punctuation and seem to be understood by folks, who unlike yourself, have outgrown the habit of eating school paste while jerking off to Baseball Stats for Sabeophiles.
I shit on you because I am tired of watching some piece of shit like you, publicly suck off Giants Management for years on one of the few baseball sites worth a shit. You are beyond old. You are beyond annoying. You are beyond pathos personified.
You must be some form of a reincarnated Tandy Computer Spam masquerading as a human, in order to post scrambled brain dysentery around the blogosphere.
Your complete lack of understanding of the value of defense complety negates whatever advantages you imagine yourself to have.
You seem to be under the impression that I give a shit what you think. As per usual. And as per usual go back to jerking off to pictures of Neukom Baer Sabean and Bochy somewhere else
Nope, I am not convinced you have the capaicity to care emotionally or think rationally.
Yues yure spullchekerr dumfuk
I See. If you can’t argue the merits then just change the subject.
Well, Whaddya Know?
This guy catches a lot of heat from the lipsmacks at KNBR and the sycophant posters and commentors on local Bay Area Sports blogs. Those that have little or no effective riposte, generally resort to ad hominem arguments when he takes on the front offices of the local Ballclubs. So when he calls them out, the stupid comments abound: “Its all about him, not the team.” “… he doesn’t really mean it when he admits he’s wrong”; “…he’s too hard on management, its not their fault that player x sucks and is greedy.”
And that is essentially the sum total of the responses to his very real and provable assertions that the management and front office people of the 5 major Bay Area Sports teams have failed to bring any kind of championship since 1995. Thats almost 75 seasons worth of Baseball, Football, and Basketball…an entire lifetime in most societies. And not only no championships. Most of the teams have been horrible for years with the occasional exception here and there before slipping back into ineptitude.
And so he calls out amongst others…the broadcast media and particularly KNBR. Here are some snippets. I encourage anybody who is interested by such things to read the entire column.
He puts the blame for failure where it belongs. On management.
And he points the finger at many of his brethren in media for being too cozy with management. And while he praises the independence of some writers who I find to be despicable (Ratto and Jenkins for their distortions and sarcastic sermonizing during the Bonds era) he points the finger primarily at the Giants flagship station and indirectly by his absence of mention, the Giants beat writers who are happy to report out on player negativity, but never or rarely criticize management’s shortcomings and how management ineptitude, greed, and silent agendas contribute the majority of the continuing on-field failure.
Its lengthy,and will take more than a couple of minutes to reflect upon in the context of the Giants, but well worth it.
Here are the bullet points:
John,
We were in agreement until your updates.
The Giants didn’t piss away $55M on Randy Winn. Randy Winn’s three year deal that just ended was for $23.25M and Randy provided the Giants almost 9 WAR which is almost $40M of value for this. Plus in Randy’s first year and a half with the Giants he provided an additional 4.5 WAR which is almost $15M of value for a cost to the Giants of just $8.5M. Once again you completely fail to see the value of defense plus Randy provided two and a half years of outstanding offense as well. In total the Giants got almost $55M of value from Randy Winn (not pissed away) at a cost of just over $30M. Randy Winn was a great addition to the Giants. It is time to move on but you should be glad (not bitching) that the Giants were able to ge the value he privided at such a discounted price.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1235&position=OF#value
Now let’s discuss adding Dan Uggla in addition to the already re-singed Freddy Sanchez. Who says Dan Uggla is limited to 2B or for that matter Freddy Sanchez is limited to 2B. Freddy in fact has already shown that he is also an outstanding defender at 3B in addition to 2B. More then likely Dan Uggla’s slightly negative defense at 2B would indicate that he would be at least the equal of Pablo defensively at 3B and for that matter 1B too. I just don’t see how you can even question that adding Dan Uggla to the existing mix wouold not improve the Giants infield. In any allocation of defensive positions an infield of Sandoval/Uggla/F.Sanchez/Renteria is clearly superior to an infield with the platoon of Ishikawa/Garko instead of Uggla. The only real question is what is it going to cost the Giants in traded talent to aquire Uggla? For this I suggest we look at what the Nationals gave up for Willingham and Olson last offseason and what the RedSox gave up for Herida this offseason to get some clues. From this I think we can conclude that Sabean should be able to pull of this trade without haveing to give up any important pieces to our future.
Fucktard. Do the owners of that site let you suck their dick every time you post an idiotic irrelevant unformatted link to their site. I bet they’re just fucking thrilled to see their work abused by a fucking basement dwelling, monitor licking blog-stalker who wouldn’t know the difference between a split-finger fastball and the stinkfinger he pulls out of his ass when scribbling on the internets.
Randy Winn hit two fucking homefuns last year. TWO MOTHERFUCKING HOMERUNS. And he led the team in plate appearances. That is the lowest total in the history of fucking baseball for a corner outfielder.
And he had fucking 106 career homeruns in over 6000 plate appearances. For you do arbitrarily denigrate anybody who does not recognize Winn for what he was…a total piece of shit waste of millions when it came to winning a championship, is just the most recent example of your just rambling to be rambling. No thought. Just punch the roulette wheel of a stats site that for some reason you masturbate to, and ramble and mumble on and on making a public ass of yourself.
Signing Dad uggla at this point makes about as much sense as your boring blather.
PS. Thanks for posting. I was never into wife beating, child abuse or cruelty to animals, minerals or even vegetables for that matter. Since you fit into none of those categories, I have to share that it is wonderfully cathartic to vent the frustrations of real life nuisances on the little imaginary morsels of ether-borne shit such as yourself.
Yawn!
Another whiff of brainless fecal material passes through the blogosphere. Please wash hands before leaving.
Sound advice with regards to your rantings.
Come up with your own insults fuckface. And from the waste material you leave scattered all over the web, the last original thought you had was determining how many pieces of toilet paper to use when wiping your chin after blowing larry baer.
I have no interst in sinking to your level.
Simply because you are a lighter than air colostomy bag, does not mean that you can float free from the scorn and ridicule that you have brought upon yourself. You have no original response to anything other than links to stats sites, Giants press releases, or pilfering the works of others
Keep it up, I am enjoying watching you continue to make a fool of yourself. You are indeed entertaining.
You have finally acknowledged one of life’s great truths:
You may resume eating your boogers.
I don’t know how long giantsrainman has been posting here. S/he employs a passive aggressive manner that makes me think s/he may be a 14 year old girl. That’s what comes to mind when I read her/his posts. There is a clear cry for attention, a really needy sort of little girl/boy aspect to it.
Look at the first post in this thread. The very first sentence. “For once, nothing to disagree with here. Nice post!”
It’s such a condescending and needlessly aggressive statement. It’s like s/he’s patting John on the head after performing some clever trick. It’s so patronizing. It is so very immature. And it’s really the wrong tone to take in this group.
giantsrainman, if you are not, in fact, a 14 year old girl your manner and behavior is inappropriate. You should look for counseling, talk to someone, but don’t bring it here. I’ve made an exception to my long held intention to never acknowledge you or your posts because you may not be aware of how you come off to the others in this group. It’s not positive, it’s not funny, it’s not cute and it’s not welcome.
To all the others who post here I suggest you also stop acknowledging her/his posts. You are only encouraging her/his sad and unwelcome behavior. Goodbye giantsrainman, I hope you get better.
Yawn
GRM, why does it bother you so much that some people don’t understand the full extent that fielding has on a team? Serious question.
Because to me it is the exact same ignorance displayed before the value of obp and thus walks became accepted. I just do not see how one can be enlightened and bitch about one (obp) and be not just blind but dismissive to the other (defense).
AS entertaining as the back and forth abuse is to read (good work +mia) I just thought I’d throw out one very simple question. Considering that Randy Winn and Adam Dunn made roughly the same money last year ($8.6m vs $9m I think) who would you have rather had playing for the Giants?
I think the obvious answer here for most people is Adam Dunn, although one commenter has claimed they would rather have Randy Winn.
We know what Randy Winn contributed to the Giants last year; less than nothing with the bat, some good outfield defence (+mia I know you hate spelling mistakes but I’m English, we use a c) and taking a shitload of at-bats away from younger players. It seems Randy Winn’s only real value last year came in the field with his glove, but who is that other really good outfielder we have with a cannon arm and some pop in his bat? Oh, yeah Nate Schierholtz. I believe if we gave Nate all of Randy’s playing time he would have contributed just as much in defence as Winn (if not more) and he would have hit for a slightly better average and several more homers.
Adam Dunn would have given the Giants lots of homers, walks and poor defence in left field. He would have been playing instead of Velez, Lewis and Winn who mostly covered left field last year. Yes Dunn’s defence is terrible but then again Velez and Lewis aren’t exactly great with the glove either and it is the drop between those two and Dunn we should measure defensively as Winn’s glove would have been replaced by Nate’s, thus canceling each other out. The real difference would have been Dunn’s bat, probably hitting 4th behind Pablo. The extra home runs alone over Winn make him considerably more value. When you also throw in all the walks he takes (not to mention pitches to get said walks) then we have to conclude that the Giants would have scored a lot more runs and if we wishfully think some of those came in games where we narrowly lost by a run or two (i.e. most games last season) then we could have won a lot more games.
Seriously overall when you think about the question I originally posed it is abundantly clear that Dunn would have been the far better option. The only thing Winn has over Dunn is his defence but as I previously mentioned that is made up for by Nate Schierholtz and the gap to Dunn defensively from Velez/Lewis is considerably less than it would be with Winn. Sure when you look at the stats independently it may say Winn was “worth” more but when you actually look at things in context and the bigger picture it quickly becomes obvious that the Giants would have had a better season if they had Dunn on the roster instead of Winn.
I see, data doesn’t matter, biases and opinions do. Go ahead and continue to live in fantasy land if you must.
Sometimes you have to understand the limits of the data before you can use it properly…
Absolutely. I understand that defensive metrics are not yet as reliable as offensive metrics. That said, it is silly to ignore them when they all scream that Adam Dunn is the one of the worst 5 defenders in all of baseball just because you love and crave offense..
It’s more than simple reliability that your statements don’t seem to recognize. It’s the fact that defensive stats are an estimate. With offense, a single is a single, a double is a double, etc. Simply put, they’re facts (other than the rare exception where something like a judgment call error is involved), whereas a defensive stat like UZR is simply an estimation. Was Randy Winn’s defensive performance as good as you cited in earlier comments? Maybe, maybe not. With offensive stats, the discrepancies are the result of sample error, which is fine because you can never fix sample error, and the fact is those hits did happen, whether they should have or not. Defensive statistics, on the other hand, are subject to actual measurement errors and biases. We don’t know for sure that Winn made all the plays he was credited with, because the data measurements simply aren’t that accurate and set in stone as offensive measurements.
As for Dunn specifically, if the plan is to move him to 1B, we just don’t have enough information to say he’s that bad at it. We know 1B represents the worst group of fielders in all of baseball, and UZR measures players against their position, so that’s something in Dunn’s favor. I also strongly doubt Winn was more valuable last year than Dunn. Dunn’s bat was worth almost 50 more runs than Winn’s. That’s a shitload of runs to make up for in fielding/positional, and quite simply the range of fielding ability generally isn’t nearly large enough to cover that, even when you’re talking about the very best and very worst fielders in baseball. Using 1 year worth of UZR to value a player is flawed, and while I understand why Fangraphs does it, you have to take it with a big grain of salt. I do not believe Winn is as good defensively as he’s credited with, nor is Dunn nearly as bad as he was rated last year (though he’s obviously bad and it does take away a significant amount of his value), and Dunn, by default almost, basically has to improve if he is at 1B…because he can’t get any worse, and his peers would be worse.
“Now let’s discuss adding Dan Uggla in addition to the already re-singed Freddy Sanchez. Who says Dan Uggla is limited to 2B or for that matter Freddy Sanchez is limited to 2B. Freddy in fact has already shown that he is also an outstanding defender at 3B in addition to 2B. More then likely Dan Uggla’s slightly negative defense at 2B would indicate that he would be at least the equal of Pablo defensively at 3B and for that matter 1B too. I just don’t see how you can even question that adding Dan Uggla to the existing mix wouold not improve the Giants infield. In any allocation of defensive positions an infield of Sandoval/Uggla/F.Sanchez/Renteria is clearly superior to an infield with the platoon of Ishikawa/Garko instead of Uggla.”
As for this….well, there’s more in here that suggests you don’t pay much attention to the limits of the data. First, playing 2B and playing 1B or 3B are somewhat different skillsets. 3B requires more of an arm (something Uggla supposedly does not have), both corner spots require more short, 1-2 step quickness as opposed to long runs to establish a players “range” than 2B. They’re more similar than IF/OF, for sure, but that doesn’t mean the skillset translates perfectly. Plus it’s a new position with new footwork/positioning to learn, and given a bad fielder like Uggla, it just might be that he subtracts a crapload of value with his defense. We do know that Uggla isn’t good at 2B, but we don’t know how he’ll fare at 1B or 3B, where I would call Sandoval pretty average already, despite his lack of experience…so no, I don’t think he would be the equal of Sandoval. By the way, Garko’s career and projected stats suggest he’s very minimally less productive offensively than Uggla.
Next point – Sanchez – from the data we have, I think it’s reasonable to think he can do a decent job at 3B. Outstanding is pretty strong considering the very limited amount of data, though. He only has ~1300 career innings at 3B, and none since 2006. Not to mention he’s past his prime. The strongest reasoning against Uggla is he’s going to cost actual talent in addition to money to acquire. There are similar options on the FA market that would only require money. It doesn’t make sense to trade anything for Uggla if we can find a similar value on the FA market.
The only thing I care to discuss right now is Garko at C. Garko cannot play C. I don’t know how that McC crap made it’s way over here, but it’s simply not a viable suggestion. Garko has never played C for a single pitch at the MLB level in his career. The last time he played it at any level was 2005, and he still logged more games at 1B than C that year (that was at the AAA level). Since he first entered the minor leagues, he started splitting time at 1B and C. To quote one of Baseball America’s writers, when asked a few weeks ago if Garko can C, ”
Nope. He was always shaky back there.”
Did you ever see him catch? I did. He wasn’t the greatest, but he is more than adequate for the Giants. He was switched over in the minors for the reasons cited last July. He was blocked by a couple of very good catchers by the name of Victor Martinez and Kelly Shopach.
And I will take the word of coaches who coached him over the word of guys at Baseball America. He’s a stopgap until the alleged second coming of Johnny Bench can figure out how to hit Big League pitching. The Bench award is not handed out for offensive performance alone. It goes to the best overall catcher in the country and the prior winners are listed above.
Garko’s career 790 OPS and 351 OBP are pretty decent numbers for a catcher, and blah for a 1b/lf. He’s better than anything the Giants have right now behind the dish, including Molina and his .285 OBP. And compared to Bengie, he is freaking elastoman behind the dish. Fat Bengie can’t get his glove higher than his shoulder, and has all the mobility behind the dish of a three-legged hippo. While Garko may not be Bench, he’s not a bad alternative. Save the money that Sabean is going to throw at Kendall or Doumitt or Pudge. The guys averages more pitches per plate appearance than anybody on the roster than Fred Lewis over his career as far as I can tell. So he seems to have pretty good plate discipline which is something this team needs in the worst way. And if they can get it for from Garko, than thats like found money.
In any event, where Ryan Garko is or is not going to play next season should be about number 94 on the shitlist of things that need to get done before next season starts. Right behind who is going to sing the National Anthem on Martian-American heritage night, and right in front of who is going to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on “Until there’s a There, There Day”
Besides. Who really does give a shit about a Ryan Garko in the big picture anyway. This club is so fucked right now, in the fact that the Giants are using last years 88 wins as a baseline in planning their offseason. That was demonstrated by Neukom’s rehiring of Stupider and Stupidest
And that “crap” as you call it, came from me in July, so I don’t know where the McC reference came from. Anyway, the last thing I want to see is a return of Bengie Molina, or the signing of yet another useless over the hill pile of shit that we all know that Sabean is going to sign in the offseason anyway. G
Ugly is as Ugly Does
I filched this from Giants Cove. John posted up on the Yankees last week and their excellence this season and particularly this post season. Prior to that, we had been discussing the abysmal Giants offense. Just to illustrate the vast chasm between the “Overachieving” second tier Giants and the “Best Team money can buy” Champion Yankees:
A 258 run differential? Unbelievable. I made a snarky comment a couple of weeks ago that the Giants were closer to their AAA affiliate, Grizzlies, than they were to the Yankees. It was intended as a gross exaggeration. But looking at those numbers makes you wonder.
We look at those numbers. And then we look at Sabean, at Nuekom, and at Baer. And then recall “Magnum Force”, where Dirty Harry told the ubiquitous and oily Lt. Briggs, after Briggs boasted about never having to draw his gun in his entire career:
“A good man always knows his limitations.”
I’m not really yelling, I misplaced my keyboard and the only thing I had to write with was a Sharpies.
The Giants and the Dodgers allowed the same number of runs last season: 611.
The Dodgers scored 123 more runs.
On the lighter side, the Elias people have published their rankings for catchers and Bengie Molina is ranked number 3 from the National League. They also ranked Mike Matheny 28th and he’s been retired for two years. How hard do you think those Elias guys were laughing when they put together the list?
Was Tequila a factor?
And rumor has it that the Omar the Miniya, another from the school of rbi’s, batting average, grit and gravy, has a man crush on Molina and aren’t really concerned that Fatboy is a type A, since they wouldn’t have to give up a 1st rounder for him due to their finish in 09 so I’m told.
If Giants fanatics want to themselves a favor, masquerade yourselves up as Mets fans and take out an ad in the NY Times, and Post imploring Fred Wilpon and co. to sign Bengie.
Me and Scott. Tight.
Sometimes, you come across the damnedest things in msm. One of the reasons I harp on them so hard, is that the less they do their jobs and do the dirty work, the more subscribers they lose. And no damn place I can think of is better off with fewer honest journalists with access to sources and the time, energy and knowhow to get that type of information out to the public. So whenever I come across something in msm that is contrary to the typical msm status quo habit of stroking the Baseball Owners’ ego, I like to recognize it. Here is Nick Calfardo from the Boston Globe’s website, Boston.com — where he gives Scott Boras a forum for his take on MLB revenues and the way the tea,s go about spending it. And in spite of the annual crop failures we keep hearing about from the Major League Owners Plantation Association, and their toupee-wearing marionette, Bossman Bud, there are some numbers in there worth noting.
* MLB revenues have gone from $1billion in 1990 to $6billion in 2009.
* Each club with $80 million in shared revenue from MLB outside of the club’s own individual revenue stream
* Two million in attendance at $40-50 per head.
* $180 million in revenue and $50-60-70-80million in payroll
This is the other side of the Neukom Baer Sabean Magowan “Woe is the economy” horseshit, in the words of Scott Boras. MY MAIN MAN!!! (except for the Zito fleecing you fucker):
Great post and that article was a very interesting read. Even if you assume that Boras is exaggerating the numbers it is still pretty damning on MLB owners. One more interesting point comes toward the end of the article where the Mariners, Brewers and Giants are thrown in with the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets as potential big spenders:
Sorry messed up the quote there, that is my comment on this part of the article
There will always be teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets, who will go after a player they desperately need and won’t be afraid to offer a big salary. Even teams like Seattle, Milwaukee, and San Francisco will be aggressive to make sure they don’t miss out on the players they want. But so many others will bottom-feed.
Definitely some interesting stuff. I kind of like Boras, even though he’s…well, Scott Boras. I’ve never understood why GM’s let him walk all over them like he does (actually, yes I do, it’s because somehow the Brian Sabean’s of the world, who don’t have the abilities a GM needs like negotiation skills, are the ones that get the job).
The Giants made more money than a lot of franchises. If they were dedicated to winning, they could easily up the payroll ~$40M+ and still have excess revenues to pay down their debt. The owners just wouldn’t fill their pockets as deeply.
John. Your Thoughts?
As for me, its been 51 years and counting.
John. Your Thoughts?
As for me, its been 51 years and counting.
And there was this entry in the Scrotums of the Year Award competition. This is how the Dodgers are dealing with economic prosperity:
Can you believe this shit? Most of the time Plashke isn’t about journalism and is interested mainly in propagating stories, for the sake of sensationalist columns. Not to mention face time on ESPN, the pimp of choice for print journalists looking to sell their asses on the airwaves. But he does a good job at calling out the Dodgers, and in turn MLB Plantation owners in general with this excellent piece.
This is part of the MLB culture that is hidden from view and willfully ignored by the good folks at KNBR, The Chronicle, Comcast and all the other so called journalists telling us all what and how to think.
Front offices of Major league teams are run like medieval kingdoms. Everything is cool if you’re a duke, duchess, or an earl, but woe betide the serfs who harvest the crops. You are shit and if you do not grovel, you will get reduced rations or no rations at all.
There is more than oner reason that owners hate Scott Boras, and hated Marivin Miller and hate Donald Fehr. And it is witnessing a lifetime of shit like this that drives Boras and others to squeeze the living shit out of owners. To punish them. And then the owners punish back by doing things like this to the little people. Like in a all conflicts between 2 powerful entities. The innocent bystander just trying to earn enough to make it to the next day gets mauled.
They don’t do things like this because they need the money. They do things like this to folks like Geroge Genovese for one reason only.
Because they can.
Sad to say, after 32 years with the Giants organization, including signing Bobby Bonds, Jack Clark, and Chili Davis, the Giants fired him in 1994, in a “cost savings” move.
Don’t know if you guys have read/seen this yet but Ron Manfred has responded to the comments that Scott Boras made the other day regarding revenue sharing and payroll. He disputes Boras’ figures
Interesting that Manfred says the five largest revenue sharers are getting roughly $50m-$60m in revenue sharing. That’s still enough money to cover the payroll for the 3 sub $60m payroll teams (Marlins, Padres, Pirates). Another 11 teams come in with a payroll under $80m and so I think its safe to assume that with ticket sales added on they have most of if not all their payroll covered.
Also ONLY 10 teams have $200m OR MORE in revenue so why is only one team spending even close to that in payroll (Yankees at ~$201m)?
Sorry forgot to add a link to the article, here it is:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2009/11/manfred_dispute.html
“Also ONLY 10 teams have $200m OR MORE in revenue so why is only one team spending even close to that in payroll (Yankees at ~$201m)?”
Well, to be fair here, payroll doesn’t take into account operating expenses, or stadium payments, and whatever else. A lot of owners have to take on debt to buy a franchise so it’s understandable that they try to pay off that debt with their profit margin. That said, it’s still a legitimate question – a lot of these owners really do treat their franchise as a legitimate investment they’re expecting to get a good return from, and the Giants seem to be one of the ownership groups that’s very concerned about their ROI . Any time it’s treated as a business before a baseball team, the fans lose.
Don’t take my word for it. Take it from Selig’s stooge, Boby Dupuy, in a lengthy CNN article in 2007
The math is pretty straightforward Fellas: $6 billion divided by 30 teams = $200,000,000.00 per team. Don’t forget that CBA that went into effect in 2003 called for revenue sharing whereupon 20% of all 30 teams local revenues go into the “Central Fund”. (In the AL, about 80% of ticket sales go to the home team, and about 95% in the National League) The “Central Fund” is than redistributed proportionately and inversely along with all the League revenue that goes into the Central Fund ( tv rights, merchandise, cable network etc ad nauseum) with the lowest revenue teams collecting the most. Meaning, the teams with low payrolls beget low attendence beget low local revenues beget bigger revenue sharing checks.
Hence you have greedy cheapass fucks in Oakland, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tampa, Miami, San Diego, Washington, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Cleveland who have virtually nobody on their rosters earning fair market value. Fairmarket equals anybody with more than 6 years of MLB service. Need I remind everybody that the average MLB contract is about 5.6 years?
Fuck Ron Manfred. He is the owners chief negotiator.
Simple math:
Giants attendance = 3 million 3 Million x 70 buckets = 210 million plus the comcast plus central fund money plus plus plus. These fuckers are taking in 300 million per year and they crybaby about expenses and how they can’t compete.
Like I said. Not “can’t compete”. But “Won’t compete.” Scrotum-scratching, ass-crack faced, butt-breathed, greedy welfare nipple-swingers built on the backs of fans and players.